The issue was inflamed by the corporate media as a polarized argument between diametrically opposed forces with both sides claiming moral high ground. As social legislation the flag was not an available prop and the poor and disenfranchised though good story lines for Oprah have little leverage beyond sound bytes in our Federal governance.

The major argument posed by Republicans was fiscal responsibility as if the right side of the Congressional aisle had suddenly found religion after profligate spending on two foreign wars, unlimited homeland “security,” a bail-out of the financial criminals who nearly destroyed the world economy and tax protectionism for those who profit most from the commons of our nation state.

It is a simple task to contribute to the mountain of hypocrisy and falsehood that have been offered on this subject by both sides and I have a personal bias against the approaching fiscal cliff toward which our deficit is driving. However, I don’t believe entitlements or social legislation are the primary cause of our financial debacle but war and the American empire.

Our proclivity for militarism as tool for foreign policy hasn’t decreased since the removal of the Supreme Court appointed Bush administration, with over 700 known (and many more secret) military fortresses circling the globe, particularly in the mid East and other resource rich geographies.

The CIA / NSA conglomerate operates an off-budget shadow government intruding Machiavellian fashion in most foreign governments under an Orwellian rubric of “national interest.” Our decade long military occupation of Afghanistan is supposedly in this “interest” though not three in ten Americans could locate the country on a map and not one in ten could voice a logical argument for the continuing predatory violence the Afghan people suffer.

Our last president had enough family experience with Houston business practice to craft the “surge,” a wholesale payoff to the forces opposing US military occupation in Iraq long enough for the media to spin a success out of this terrible story. Our political “leaders” followed by putting the blame for the lagging repair of our destruction on the Iraqis, criticizing them for not “standing up,” “learning to ride the bike” or whatever condescending metaphor our dysfunctional governors could dream up for Iraq failing to clean up our mess.

The United States currently spends more on military spending than the other top five developed nations combined. Most of our meaningful industry has been off-shored with our largest export becoming implements of war to our own military but even worse to the world arms market.

Empire and energy go hand in hand and to comprehend demand for fossil fuel is to understand our military deployments, our foreign intelligences on every continent, and the huge drain of blood and treasure that may help some below the median bar of the great wealth divide but largely benefits the select 5% of our population who control 90% of the wealth.

The great dissimulator Ronald Regan, professional actor for the corporate class, convinced the Vietnam / Watergate weary population that social issues were un-American, justice something required of the poor, privilege a national birthright and America again as city on the hill despite the best efforts of Daniel Ellsberg, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, John Lennon, Howard Zinn, Rosa Parks, Barbara Jordan, Shirley Chisolm, Maya Angelou and countless other intelligent, passionate and truth telling voices raised to awaken the sleeping giant to its political and cultural reality.

The current Tea Party movement has some valid issues and a list of demagogues twisting them to serve the primary concern of the elite which is to divide and conquer. Congressional emotions rose to a peak about deficit spending on health insurance reform yet devoted less than a day of debate and but a handful of nay votes against a hugely profligate military appropriations budget.

Until we understand that our life force as a nation is being drained off to feed the vampires of energy demand and world empire our nation’s progress will be stifled in the 21st century.

vpdonhynes.blogspot.com/2010/04/empire-and-energy-vantage-point-4-5-10.html

April 5, 2010